


Nostalgia

by BrightDream



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 13:44:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16682722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrightDream/pseuds/BrightDream
Summary: “What are you doing here?” Albus  ask shakily, as soon as he sits down. “Have you lost your mind?”Gellert cocks his head, beckons the waiter with a flourish of his wand.“I do love Wien at this time of the year.”A re-encounter fic. Takes place a few years after The Crimes of Grindelwald.





	Nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

> So... I haven't written or been in fandom in years. Yesterday, after seeing The Crimes of Grindelwald, I finally felt like writing again...  
> This is short and there's probably a lot of mistakes (English is not my first language, and I haven't written fic in ages), but I figured I should post it before I lost my nerve.

 

They meet at a café next to the river, a cold autumn breeze gusting upon their robes. Albus wears purple and Gellert black; Albus looks rumpled and tired and Gellert precise and neat, not a single hair out of place.

“What are you doing here?” Albus  ask shakily, as soon as he sits down. “Have you lost your mind?”

Gellert cocks his head, beckons the waiter with a flourish of his wand.

“I do love Wien at this time of the year.”

They are silent, studying each other, looking for similarities, for differences. So much time has passed since they were the boys they remember.

The waiter approaches and gets their order, coffee and tea. It takes a while for him to be back, kettles floating close, and they have not yet broken their silence.

Albus gulps down his tea, mind racing. A few blocks from here, right now as they sit, the great European Council still gathers, for the third day on a row, to discuss the Grindewald threat. The city brims with people who hate him, people that would do anything to kill him, and here he is, calm and unbaffled.

Albus meets Gellert’s mismatched eyes, tries to read what’s inside his mind. But he is met with a wall and a smile.

“You realize you should never have bothered with teaching me Occlumency, don’t you?”

“One of my many mistakes.” Albus sounds bitter to his own ears, bitter and so very old. He is tired of this, tired of this ghost that haunts him still, in his dreams and in the Mirror and now in person. “Have you come to kill me, Gellert?” and his voice cracks at the name.

Gellert smiles again, that infuriating cocky smile and oh, some things haven’t changed.

“And how could I do that, exactly? Or have you found a way to undo the pact?

“Not yet.”

Gellert traces a lazy curve with his wand, and the pendant floats from inside of a purple pocket. He takes it in his fingers slowly, touches it as if reacquainting himself with an old friend.

“Well, I’m disappointed in you, Professor,” he mocks, but if anything, he sounds pleased.

Albus sighs.

“For a while I thought I had found it, you know,” he confides. “There are extensive records of a wizard that has tried to break blood magic, two centuries ago. For years he tried and finally he came up with a powerful spell that could undo it. It looked like he would succeed, but then—”

“He died a very horrible death, that one.” Gellert interrupts. “Poor Monsieur Lambert.”

Albus raises his eyebrows.

 “Are you familiar with his writings, then?”

“Oh yes. I did have an interest in the idea myself. Destroying the pendant, ending the pact…  But Lambert was the closest I got to it as well. Although I do believe he was in the right track...He just didn’t grasp the concept entirely.”

Albus pushes his glasses up his nose. "How so?"

“He was meddling in Dark Arts, much darker than he would ever dream of understanding.The magic behind the spell is solid… But it’s blood magic, and with blood it should be payed.” Gellert’s eyes flickers dangerously. “Or so I though at the time.”

Understanding slowly dawns on Albus.

“A sacrifice,” he says quietly. “More innocent’s blood spilled to get us _free_?”

A shadow of annoyance flashes through Gellert’s face. “I wouldn’t call it free,” he replies. “And in any case, it is merely a theory. I never got around to trying it.”

“Why not?”

Gellert doesn’t answer. He busies himself with his coffee, and Albus feels exasperation growing under his own skin. When he speaks again, his voice is shaking, ready to burst:

“As if you _minded_ any kind of sacrifice. As if you _cared_ about spilling blood, any blood, for the _greater good_. You didn’t care back then, so why should you care _now_? _Do it_ , damn you. Release me of this  _bloody_ curse, release both of us, so we can end this once and for all; so we can—”

“I _cared_ ,” Gellert interrupts and for the first time he sounds offended. Offended, and sad, and not the cocky boy he had once been. “I am sorry about Ariana, Albus. I really am.”

“You do _not_ get to speak her name.”

Is not only his voice that is shaking, but his hands. He wants to pull out his wand and curse Gellert; wants to kill him, to make him hurt.

“Of course,” Gellert says quietly. He looks away, and Albus hates him more for that, hates him for not giving the confrontation he needs.

“Why haven’t you tried your theory?” Albus repeats. “Didn’t you wish to end the pact?”

“It was my plan at first.” Gellert admits. The mismatched eyes meet his. “But even though you think I’m a monster, I’m still only a man. As such, I am fit for some bouts of...Nostalgia.”

An image flashes through his brain, so vivid that Albus can’t help but to eavesdrop. A warm summer room, twisted sheets. The two of them, so young, naked and flushed from love making, practicing at new spells.

“What are you doing here, Gellert?” Albus asks one more time, and his voice is so very tired. “It’s been so long… I don’t want any bullshit, or excuses, just—“

“I came to attend the European Council” Gellert answers. The amusement is back at his voice. “You have no idea how entertaining it is, to sit there, completely disguised, and watch they talk about me and ‘my plans’.” He chuckles. “They know nothing.”

“And here, at this café?”

Gellert studies him.

“I didn’t know you would be in the city,” he says. “If I knew, I would not have come. But then I saw you, and I thought…” Gellert trails off. “My memories play tricks on my mind of late.”

They sit silently once more. Albus looks at Gellert, the lines in his face, the golden hair that is slowly turning white.

“What do you want from me?”

And finally Gellert loses his composture. He reaches for Albus’ wrists, grips it hard with his long hands. Their skin is warm against each other.

“Will you make me say it, Albus? Do I have to look into your eyes and say that I wanted to talk to you, once more? Do you want me to admit that I missed you? That I have found no one to match me, but you, that I will not find anyone else simply because this person does not exist? You know all of this, _damn you_ , you know….”

“No,” Albus voice sounds like a sob. “Do not… I don’t wish to hear it, I cannot…”

Gellert releases him.

“You’re a coward, Albus Dumbledore,” he says gravely. ”Too scared to hear the truth. To scared to admit that you could be more, more than this pathetic excuse of a man you are, a _Professor_ when you could be a _King,_ when you could rule what is yours by right…”

“Leave,” Albus demands and there are tears running down his broken nose. “Please leave.”

Gellert stands. The pendent falls to the table, hitting the wood with the sound of something much heavier.

“Make the sacrifice yourself, if you want it so much,” he dares, and his eyes are hot with anger. “You are no strange to Dark magic, as we both know. You can pretend all that you want, but in the end you will have to make a choice… Join me, or try to kill me. There is no middle ground.”

“Gellert, that's not--”

 “I’ll be waiting,” and with that he disapparates, his black shadow flying high in the sky.

Albus is left alone at the café, the wind singing a soft tune in his ears.

He hides his head in his hands and weeps.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
